


Pit

by Porkchop_Sandwiches



Series: It's White and Pink. [3]
Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Companion Piece, Drug Use, Established Relationship, M/M, Totally normal horny outdoor recreation, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:29:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2618528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Porkchop_Sandwiches/pseuds/Porkchop_Sandwiches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Come on, Mr. White. It’s like we’re in the fucking jungle. We’re men, yo. Be a wild man with me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set very early in season 4 with some minor changes. It's also set between my stories "Severed Hand" and "The Chihuahua and the St. Bernard" though they read better in the order I wrote/posted them versus their chronological order. Just as a warning, there is some light homophobic language used. The rating is for the second half.

“I’m not sure I heard you correctly,” Walt says. He sets the pointed tip of his shovel into the ground, ceasing the disrupting scuff and shuffle of dirt that’s overpowering the sound of Jesse’s rasping voice. “Did you say Space Camp?”

Jesse rolls up the sleeve of his black leather jacket that by all means seems destined to crawl its way closer and closer to the thin bone and cartilage of his wrist. Despite the inevitable, he sighs and shoves the material back up his elbow.

Walt finds it hard not to stare at the glossy black material gathered and bloated like a rubber tire above Jesse’s scorpion tattoo. The insect is spread across pale pigmentation as if it were lying in sand dunes as opposed to someone’s forearm.

It’s strange for Walt, being in the backyard of Jesse’s childhood home, air rich with the season-appropriate smell of leaves and lawn clippings and some sort of exterior-purpose paint. There’s an enduring, almost haunting odor of burned wood, maybe charcoal as well, acting like some form of premonition of what he and Jesse plan on constructing.

The back of Jesse’s parent’s property is impressively spacious and clean: well-structured brickwork bordering the screen porch, a small though pleasant array of patio furniture, dark wood fencing on both sides with a line of thick foliage at the back.

The entire neighborhood is astonishingly nice for someone who dresses and carries himself like Jesse. Houses are properly maintained, an older man was washing his navy Chrysler minivan a few driveways over, and he can hear children playing tag somewhere within howling distance. But, Walt should have expected as much from the muddled, hazy memories of Jesse’s father from parent-teacher conferences, which are mostly vague images of V-neck sweaters, restless frowning, and the beginnings of a comb-over.

Walt’s feeling a bit restless as well. When he’d first arrived, he followed Jesse into his old bedroom so Jesse could grab something or other. It was unsettling seeing Jesse amid framed crayon drawings, a toy chest concealing god knows what, and the old photographs on the wall of when he was much younger and grinning. The blunt contrast of Jesse in black, head newly shaved, eyes dark with sleep loss, was both nauseating and sickly captivating. Walt wanted just as much to walk away and leave Jesse at peace forever as he desired to wrap his arms around the boy and mouth the line of prickly hairs from the firm line of his jaw all the way up to the top of his scalp. That heart-to-groin miscommunication in Walt’s circulatory system could possibly be the major artery keeping him appended to Jesse, pumping Jesse full of blood and survival while dragging him along by the same warm, pulsing, wounded vein.         

In the late afternoon glare of the sun, Jesse’s haircut doesn’t appear nearly as somber. The short brownish-blond bristles make his head glimmer like a peach Walt would like to bend forward and taste.

Jesse clasps both hands around the handle of his shovel and leans into it, stretching out his back with a practically feline quality. “Yeah, _fucking_ Space Camp.”

“But, how exactly does Space Camp relate to today’s agenda?” Walt shakes his head. “What connection am I missing here?”

Jesse rolls his eyes, passing his shovel back and forth between his palms. “Yo, you go to crank up your hearing aid or some shit. I said my parents are saving up for Space Camp ‘cause that’s like all Jake apparently wants to do. And, since they’re out in Las Cruces for his soccer match…exhibition…tournament, like whatever you call it, they needed somebody to stop over to let the guy in to install the new dishwasher.”

Walt absently twists the blade of his shovel into the earth. “So, purchasing a major household appliance is their way of saving money?”

“ _Oh my god_.” Jesse drags his fingers down his face. “Next time you decide to totally zone out everything I fucking say, can you at least give me a heads up or something so I can shut my mouth?”

He nods. “That sounds like a reasonable request.”

“Prick,” Jesse says. His smile is thinly buried under the front of a squinty-eyed scowl. He wipes at his upper lip. “But, like I already told you in straight-up English over the phone, my granddad on my mom’s side is paying for the dishwasher as some sort of late anniversary present. The dudes at Home Depot have like rescheduled bringing it over three or four times, which probably got my dad’s sweater vest in a wad. He chewed out some supervisor who as an apology bumped my parents up the list to get the installing done on a Saturday. Then Jake’s team made it to, you know, the Super Bowl of little league soccer shit and my dad didn’t want to be a douche and like postpone on Home Depot. He called me yesterday, asked if I could handle it.”

Jesse scoffs something bitter and dry. “I was like, _yeah_ , I think I can handle unlocking a door. Then he was all like ‘well, if you’re already in the area, why don’t you have a go at my newest home improvement project?’ And yeah, he _really_ says shit like ‘have a go at it’ like he’s Mr. Rogers.”

Jesse scratches his neck and kicks a clump of clay by his sneaker. “Yo, what did you hear me say on the phone anyway? I mean, your khakis are already dirty as shit. Did you even know we’d be doing like manual labor?”

Walt lifts his shovel to continue digging. If they keep stopping for these conversational breaks, they won’t finish before the sun sets.

He clears his throat. “The essence, nucleus if you will, of what I gleaned from your message was that you wanted me to help you dig a hole in your backyard.”

Walt admiringly watches Jesse remove his coat and drop it on the grass, gives him an unhurried onceover from loose-fitting jeans to a black t-shirt with a skull sticking its tongue out. He lets his gaze narrow in on the slope of Jesse’s backside. “I didn’t think you were being literal.”

“What do you mean?”

Jesse cranes his neck to the side, turns his head to Walt, looks back to where Walt’s so obviously ogling. His eyebrows spring up, sprouting like the tiny seedlings of Jesse’s common sense that Walt sincerely hopes have managed to survive the soil of Jesse’s poorly-tended, Funyun-fed, bong-fogged brain.

“ _Yo_ , if I start asking for dick in code like that just like box me up and Fed Ex me to Gayville.”

“Nonsense.” Walt excavates the last of the lawn from the sectioned-off 5-foot circumference and heaves his shovel to the side of their stack of stone blocks. “I’ve heard ardent reports that Gayville is quite charming in November. We’ll visit together. Go apple picking perhaps.”

Jesse blinks, shakes his head. “ _Wow_. Please like _never_ say that _ever_ again. Also, I sort of like _definitely_ mentioned the hole in my, you know, literal, _not-my-ass_ backyard was for a fire pit.”

Another small surge of frustration radiates from Jesse with his hands clenched and expression tight. He’s been behaving this way for days, displaying temporary spikes of anger provoked by mundane subjects like when Walt mentioned Skyler’s new obsession with hot herbal tea. Walt doesn’t know what to make of it nor does he dare question Jesse in such a state.

Instead, Walt takes the first two adobe-red four-by-eight bricks and begins arranging them around the circle. “Did your parents happen to include why this home improvement project needed to be conducted thisparticular weekend?”

Jesse snaps down into a crouch, assisting Walt in layering the hexagon-shaped slabs like a honeycombed hive. He sniffs and scrubs at his nose. “Yeah, my mom’s got this cousin and her husband coming in town from France. They were like born there and speak the language and everything. I think New York and Miami and Virginia are the only places they’ve been to in America. They think New Mexico is still like the Old West or some shit. And, my mom was kind of drunk after my dad’s work party, ended up talking to her cousin on the phone and promised her this ‘quaint’ fire pit, like roasting meat over an open fire and star gazing and like cowboy shit like that. Their plane gets in on Tuesday and my dad blew out his back playing tennis with Jake and he didn’t want to have to pay somebody to do it.”

“Do you think they’ll invite you over for your hard work?” Walt says, passing Jesse a cautious side-glance. “Or at least to see your relatives?”

Jesse shakes his head. “I don’t think my folks and I are in the be-in-the-same-house again stage just yet. And, I haven’t seen those cousins since like, I don’t know, Fred Durst was still a thing.”

“What _is_ a Fred Durst?”

Jesse laughs as he rubs the base of his palm firmly into his nose. “Yo, never mind. Sometimes I forget you’re like fifty or whatever.”

Walt’s feeling it in his knees and stands up to ease the stress on his joints. They’ve arranged the first two levels of brick. Jesse reaches out to start on the third, and Walt spots the scorpion twitching with his movements. He’s been squirmy and edgy the last two days or so.

“This is a good look for you,” Walt says. He cups Jesse’s scalp, fingering the soft fuzz, gently using his nails like he knows Jesse enjoys. “Did you shave this yourself?”

Jesse coughs in vain as if he’s trying to quiet the pleased humming thrum that vibrates from his throat like a colony of bees. “Uh, yeah, I just wanted a change, and like it was getting kind of long, like making my head hot.”

“Since when did the million-layers-of-hoodies-wearing Jesse Pinkman _ever_ start feeling overheated? I thought your natural inner climate was something akin to a raspberry slushie.”

He shrugs and places another brick down. “I guess it’s been pretty recent.”

“Well, regardless, it fits you.” Walt carefully pulls the back of Jesse’s head closer to his crotch. “I’d love to break it in.”

Jesse wiggles a little, but doesn’t move away. “Maybe later. We need to get this shit done before the guy gets here.”

“The peculiar thing about later is that in its transient nature, it could become now at any moment in time unbeknownst to us.” Walt pushes a fraction of an inch forward, grinds against Jesse’s buzz cut.

“Yo, easy,” Jesse says with a chuckle. “ _Jeez,_ I swear sometimes it’s like you got the face a fifty-year-old but the dick of like a twenty-something tweeker.”

“What do tweekers have anything to do with me?”

He shrugs again, picks up his full bottle of Mellow Yellow and takes a swig. “Crystal can make people like super horny all the time. It used to make me horny.”

Walt sincerely weighs the pros and cons of unzipping his pants right here and now. Because at Walt’s most animalistic level, hearing Jesse say the word “horny” makes him feel like a dog picking out words like “bath” and “walk,” and now Walt certainly wants Jesse to follow through with that promise of a so-to-speak walk.

He decides to restrain himself. And, the phrase “restrain” reminds him of Jesse’s borderline insatiable sexual appetite as of late that’s granted Walt the joy of bending the boy over the break room couch of the lab on several occasions. He wonders if asking _the_ question, the one Jesse hates, the one Walt’s been pondering every time Jesse sniffles and rubs his nose will provide him with any genuine answers.

Jesse finishes off his soda and Walt grimaces picturing what that garbage is doing to his stomach lining.

“I’d be shocked if your urine didn’t primarily consist of Mellow Yellow. The stuff must be fueling your blood stream,” Walt says. He affectionately thumbs the shell of Jesse’s ear. “Is there anything else in your blood stream I should know about?”

Jesse turns to face him, still on his knees with his demeanor stiff and serious. “No, I’m good, like I swear. I’m not using again.”

“But, you _have_ been a little more…eager, I should say…than normal.”

Jesse casts his eyes to the side as a squirrel rustles the branches of a nearby Netleaf Hackberry. Glancing up, he sets his hand between Walt’s legs, inching up the inseam. There’s a ghost of a smirk present. “I’m like…a red-blooded human being, yo. Like, I’m a growing young man. It’s totally normal for my…libido to uh, fluctuate and shit.”

Jesse fingers are a light caress along Walt’s cock. Walt has to squint against the last of the sunlight blaring in the sky before its descent. He can still hear children yammering somewhere close even over the distant roar of a leaf blower. And being out in the semi-open like this is making everything deliciously obscene.

Walt grunts when Jesse presses his palm into his shaft. “Do I get any credit for this newfound behavior?”

Jesse is full-on smirking now. “What do you want me to say? I love your dick?”

Jesse starts to stroke him over his khakis.

“Is that asking too much?” Walt smiles.

He feels one of Jesse nails graze his zipper. The metal is tugged down a mere centimeter at most, but it feels incredible.

Jesse seems to eye the outline of Walt’s quarter-mast erection, soil getting smeared into Walt’s pants with each slow back-and-forth of Jesse’s lean wrist. Licking his lips, he gazes at Walt smugly. “Dirty old man.”

Jesse shuts his eyes and nuzzles his forehead into Walt’s crotch. Walt moans.

“Hey! Is this the Pinkman residence?”

The voice comes from the house, so crystal clear and close that Jesse jerks back with enough force to topple backwards. He smacks his head against a brick and knocks down another six or so.

Walt lurches forward. “ _Jesse,_ are you alright?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jesse says. He hoists himself up to his feet, brushing debris from his head and back. “Yeah, I’m _great_.”

That voice from behind Walt speaks up again. “ _Holy_ _shit balls_! That looked like it knocked some fucking marbles out. You need a cold glass of water or maybe an Aspirin the size of my ass?”

Walt narrows his eyes and turns to a large woman in the driveway wearing a Home Depot collared shirt under a denim vest, paired with grey slacks, aviator sunglasses, and what looks to be fingerless leather gloves. She’s holding a clipboard and lazily waves.

“I’m cool, yo,” Jesse says.

“Which one of you is Mr. Pinkman? I got a delivery that needs to be done pronto.”

Jesse waves back. “That’s me. I’ll be there in a sec to unlock the front door.”

“Right-oh, my brother. Just make it snappy. I got a barstool calling my name, if you know what I mean.” She ambles up the driveway.

Jesse glances at the overturned bricks and flashes Walt a desperate look. “Yo, this chick seems like sort of suspicious. I’m gonna need to stay in the kitchen just to make sure she doesn’t take shit. The last thing I need is my parents thinking I like lifted the good silverware for dope. Can you maybe finish this? I’ll like totally make it up to you. You know, pay you back for your hard work and shit.”

He smiles. “Jesse, relax. It’s not an issue. And, any sort of reimbursement is unnecessary.”

Walt bends to realign the missing stones, slotting them snugger together so as to prevent them from falling apart again in the future. Jesse’s hand is a warm, weighted sensation on Walt’s cool scalp.  

“Yeah, well, maybe I want to.”

Walt twists his head around, but Jesse is already a distant, jogging figure before he’s completely gone. In a mere second, a three-dimensional, breathing body vanishes. It’s so quick: here then there, present then absent, alive then dead. Walt doesn’t want to think about that last one, hopes Jesse isn’t obsessing over it either.

Just as Walt said before, it was either him and Jesse or _him_. Clanking the next brick against the one underneath it, Walt mentally reaffirms his decision. Because in no scenario was it going to be them. They just have to live with that now and push past it. It’s their most measured, most logical, most sensible next move.

\-----

Jesse chews the raggedy dead skin at the base of his thumb nail and holds a soft icepack to his head with his other hand. The pain’s about as dull as the marks on his inner thigh that just this morning scabbed up enough to not need a bandage. He’s just a little dizzy as he watches this lady haul around giant machinery shit like she’s She-Hulk in an orange polo. He’s honestly impressed ‘cause the stuff looks like it weighs a ton, though she sort of looks like she does too. Jesse’s not trying to be an asshole. It just is what it is. He gets shit for being scrawny all the time. Sometimes life likes to diarrhea on you for no reason.

Speaking of shit, Jesse’s sort of surprised his mom picked this dark silver chrome color that’s all shiny and nice ‘cause it’s gonna look a little weird in this kitchen full of crap like white latticed cabinets and a piss yellow refrigerator.

He wipes something gritty from the corner of his eye and tries to think about the last time they had a working dishwasher. All he can remember is hand-washing shit, spending at least an hour elbow-deep in suds with his fingers all prune-y and the whole room smelling like orange detergent.  

There was this one night early on in his junior year of high school maybe like around a few weeks before he moved in with his Aunt Ginny. Jesse was baked out of his skull and doing dishes so he could cram his mouth full of the Double Stuf Oreos he knew his mom hid on the bottom shelf of the pantry for special occasions. Every once and a while, he’d skid across the linoleum in his pot leaf tube socks to take a peek at them around the table. The three of them seemed so like put together, relaxed and laughing in a peaceful way that Jesse never seemed to be a part of. Jake was only in kindergarten, but he probably already had art gallery people like trying to display his fucking finger paintings and peanut butter, pinecone birdfeeders. Jesse wasn’t positive about what they were talking about, but this family setup in front of him was just so neat and polished. They looked like they were in the opening of an episode of _Law and Order_. Like they were in the scene before the shit goes down and interrupts whatever unexciting conversation or meal they were having just as they hear about a murder or like a rape or maybe their dumbass eldest son choking on his fifth sleeve of cookies.

Jesse remembers moving back to the sink and coughing. Lathering his hands up, he popped bubbles between his palms and deepened his voice.“In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered like hella heinous. In New York City, the dedicated, badass detectives who investigate these fucked up felonies are members of a dope elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories. _Dun Dun_!”

He started humming the _SVU_ theme song under his breath, getting really into just as he heard somebody clear their throat.

“ _Yo_ ,” Jesse said, spinning around. “Dad, what’s up?”

He was wearing one of his usual checkered button-ups with his arms crossed over his chest. His facial expression kept changing, like some kid was messing with a Mr. Potato Head and couldn’t decide between a frown and some fake-ass smile.

It’s not like Jesse can recall like verbatim or whatever what his dad told him that night, only that he didn’t approve of Jesse hanging with some new girl at school. He thinks her name was Cindy or Mindy or something, kind of dressed like trailer trash, sucked cock like it too. But, she was actually pretty cool, like played bass and listened to Black Sabbath and she could do a full-on split in a tight denim skirt. She also did a shit-ton of crystal and got Jesse into it even more than he already was.

Now that he really thinks about it, he remembers his dad with a hand on the counter.

“Listen, son, I just don’t want you making a poor decision when it comes to matters of the heart. I know I’m only your father, but I think I know what I’m talking about here. Don’t match yourself with a rotten apple. Because rot like that only spreads. Pick someone who really cares about you for who you truly are, seeds and core and all, alright?”

Jesse had nodded like crazy, snickering the second the dude was out of earshot ‘cause he was pretty sure his dad had just called him a fruit and lectured him about STDs all while Jesse had a bag of Oreos tucked into the front of his jeans.

He drops the icepack in the sink and thinks about Jake loading the dishwasher sometime later this week while rattling off about zero gravity and simulators and walking on the moon or whatever.

 _Shit,_ he’d do _anything_ for a bump. It’s a good thing Mr. White thinks with his dick like twenty percent of the time ‘cause in any normal situation the guy would have so totally been able to translate the signs of using like smeared across Jesse’s face and actions and everything. There was his runny nose, the circles under his eyes, the way Jesse lifted his ass back against Mr. White’s crotch sporadically throughout their most recent cooks. He was subtle about it, like nothing to get too excited about from the mounted security cameras. But, it was enough for their hazmat suits to squeak together and Mr. White to get fully ready for Jesse by their first break of the day.

Jesse wasn’t lying about glass getting him horned-up. He’s only done a handful of bowls over the past week, thrown like one party that may or may not still be going down at his place right now. But, his sex drive is already up there with that semester of freshman year of high school when he jerked it almost enough to like sand off his fingerprints.

Slugging back his fourth Mellow Yellow of the day, he imagines how boss it would be to be hunched over his living room coffee table with Mr. White railing him from behind and a line of crystal shooting up his nose. He wishes there was a scenario in like existence where he’d be able to cocktail those two things and bask in them until he just shuts down in a high, caffeinated, come-soaked stupor.

“Yo, you ride a Harley or something?” Jesse says.

He’s noticed her leather gloves, and even with the clash and bang of metal on metal, it’s too damn quiet in here. He might as well make small talk.

“Nah,” she says. She slams something important-looking to connect on to some other part Jesse’s never seen before. “I just bought these to give my boyfriend freaky-weird handjobs.”

She cackles, throaty like a smoker when his eyes get a little bigger. “I’m messing with you, man. Of course I own a Harley. Don’t got a boyfriend per se, kind of letting the lady business fly free. You know while you’re in here _not_ making sure I don’t lift anything, I’d let you watch this whole business on topless mode if I didn’t already spot you with your boyfriend digging a sex pit outside.”

Jesse really doesn’t know where to start with _any_ of that. Like honestly _what the hell_ is even happening right now?

She leans over her toolbox and Jesse gets an eyeful of ass crack and he can’t stop staring. It’s like the same way with cleavage. You got to peek no matter who the boobs belong to: fifteen-year-old in a bikini, fat chick in a tank top, your like elderly neighbor getting the paper in a sagging bathrobe. Tits are tits, yo, and they’re hella distracting. The fact that Jesse can get a boner so readily without them, more so since Halloween than ever before, should definitely be added to the list of fuckery that is his life.  

When she turns around, he looks away and fiddles with the blue bottle of Dawn by the sink.

“Hey, there’s no shame in being a homo. Some of the best pastry chefs in the world are fairies.” She points at him with a wrench. “Anyone ever call you a twink before?”

Jesse squints and shakes his head. “What…what’s a twink?”

She cocks her head to the window, tucking her toolbox under her arm. “Why don’t you ask your daddy outside? Just don’t let him get his claws too deep into your cream filling, if you catch my drift. I know it’s all fun and games and sixty-nining your tonsils out. But, if you don’t watch out for you, you could wind up emptier than a squashed Hostess snack cake except you’re a grown-ass man, waking up in nothing but a windbreaker inside a McDonald’s ball pit in Tucson. It happens all the time.”

She opens his refrigerator and rummages through the shelves before taking out a package of Muenster cheese. “Can I have this?”

“Yeah?” Jesse says. His parents’ dairy products are kind of low priority when he’s picturing himself as a gutted Twinkie.

“Alright, kid. Well, everything’s up and running.” She claps him on the arm, pulls him in and pats his back. “Make sure that bald nerd outside knows how fucking lucky he is. You smell like a damn Cinnabon and you got a face that makes me want to do naked squats over it.”

She smacks something down onto the counter. “Here’s my card if you want to talk or you ever feel the need to spot me while I’m doing those squats. Take care of yourself.”

Jesse almost thinks she nods to his soda, like she somehow knows he’s chugging the shit to keep his nose clean for a few hours. He nods, blushing as she walks off, and he reads the business card. Typed out on the pale paper is _Melissa Mullins: Badass Motherfucker_ and her phone number with an 857 area code. He tucks the card into his back pocket and pops open the fridge for another Mellow Yellow.

It takes him about five seconds to know there ain’t anything in here he wants to eat. Mr. White’s gonna be hungry soon, so he might as well order the guy a pizza. While he waits, maybe he can sneak that baggie of coke from his glove compartment and do just like one line in the bathroom with the fan on and the sink running like he’s fourteen with a joint again. Nose candy ain’t exactly ideal or whatever, ‘cause it gets him like two times hornier than glass, but he’ll make do with what he’s got. It totally beats like remembering shit.

A copper-colored glimmer gets stuck in the side of his vision, and it takes every impulse in him not to chuck the teakettle through his fucking kitchen window. He swallows down some carbonation instead, yanks out his cell phone and keys, and hurries to the front door.

\-----

Walt jabs his nails into the compliant plastic packing of gravel and severs it open. Making sure to lift with his knees, he hauls the sack into his arms and fills in the pit now encircled with his expertly structured brick edifice. It’s becoming dark, but he’s careful to pour the pebbles evenly, steady hand to avert any lumps from forming. Once the bag is empty, he tosses it to the side and scans the yard for firewood. Jesse mentioned something about store-bought logs under a tarp.

There’s a row of gangly-looking Bur Oaks at the far end. Walt walks with purpose to the trees because he’s grown tired of being out here alone. The high-pitched wail of someone playing with a plastic whistle is punctuated by a child giggling. He can hear car doors being slammed and catches a whiff of a curry dish that smells as warm as the auburn marbled sky melting behind the trees. He sees a shadow near a taller one on the left. It’s indeed the tarp, and as Walt leans over, he notices something moving along the bark of the tree in front of him. His eyes focus in the dim lighting. Just two or three feet away, embedded into the wood, is a bulbous, swarming nest of termites.

Considering their location on the plant, they are most likely drywood termites. It is incredibly easy to mistake them for the subterranean subspecies if one doesn’t know what to look for. He adjusts his spectacles, squints and leans in an inch or so. Sure enough, the soldier insects have quite large mandibles and teeth wider than their heads.

Walt smiles to himself, moves to stand when he notices a termite that appears double the size of the others. On further inspection, he realizes there are two of them. One is carrying the lifeless body of the other on its back. It’s struggling to remain upright, trudging forward in a mass of constant movement with gravity slowly pinning it closer and closer against the harsh surface of the bark.

Walt has seen documentaries showing how ants will work as a group to carry a heavy load, and he wonders why none of the other termites seem remotely responsive. It’s as if they don’t even see what’s going on.

“Yo, George of the Jungle.” Jesse voice is a shout from across the lawn. “Quit fucking around with the trees and come inside. I ordered pizza, got the mushroom, olive, sausage shit you like.”

“Be there in a minute,” Walt says.

The door of the screened porch smacks shut and Walt threads his fingers in the short, dry grass. He stares at this miniature world through the lenses of his glasses. And, he visualizes himself digging his fingertips into Jesse’s scalp. He questions if he spilt the pulpy, fleshy peach of the boy’s head in two, would the core inside be teaming with insects, feeding off of him and engorged with the strength they’ve eaten away.

Regaining his balance with a small pop in his ankle, Walt considers if Jesse is even equipped with the ability to genuinely respond to “how are you holding up?” He wonders if Jesse’s too weighed down with guilt, laboring with each step, still walking around with the corpse of Gale Boetticher fused along his spine.       


	2. Chapter 2

The crackle and simmer of the fire is acting as a greatly appreciated calming agent on Walt’s nerves. While relatively small, it’s emitting enough warmth for Walt to momentarily disregard the fact that he’s sitting outside at nearly eight in the evening with the weather in the mid-thirties, all on his own volition. He’d assumed getting a fire started would soothe Jesse. But, despite a stomach filled with pizza and dipping sticks, Jesse has not taken a cue from the name of his favorite beverage to mellow out in the slightest even in the dwindling of the evening.

It is particularly dark in Jesse’s backyard from the angles and shadows of his parent’s house in relation to the street lamps in front. Though by firelight alone, Walt can clearly see Jesse’s knee jerking up and down in his lawn chair like some sort of skittish nocturnal creature. If Walt were honest with himself, Jesse’s inability to relax is a strain on his patience and an issue he’d prefer not to stick his nose in with the general stress of the lab and dealing with Skyler and her _brilliant_ car wash solution. Walt hadn’t even planned on staying this late. He was fully prepared to finish his leftover lasagna at home and fall asleep in front _Jeopardy_. Or if Jesse insisted on sleeping over, they’d have most likely stroked each other on the sofa, an activity Walt has heard classified as a “circle jerk,” while watching _Jeopardy_. Neither scenario appears to be in the foreseeable future with the way Jesse’s anxiety has manifested in his every action and glance. Even Jesse’s tried and true nicotine refuge isn’t ceasing his shaking. Normally only a few drags will cool Jesse like motor oil in an improperly-lubricated engine. Currently, his cigarette seems to function merely as a prop for his spastic movements, embers flaking off rapidly like an excitable child with a sparkler. Walt’s own chair is even slightly quaking, and Jesse’s been this way for the greater part of an hour.

From the moment Walt entered the kitchen, Jesse had greeted him with an enthusiastic kiss. He’d pressed Walt against the refrigerator, slim body trembling like the cooling agent of the machine at Walt’s back. He even made that little “Mmm” noise that helps Walt gauge Jesse’s ever-changing degrees of consent, and the sound signaled an exceptionally high figure. He had even needed to pry Jesse from himself in order to reach the pizza. Walt was frankly too famished to wait any longer.

Jesse then spent the majority of dinner in an animated state. He chatted incessantly about some newly opened go-kart track and was peculiarly adamant on standing in the kitchen while he ate. For some undiscernible reason, the dining room table was not an option. Walt made do with a chair at the kitchen table, using the opened cardboard box as a makeshift plate as he strained to follow Jesse’s whiplash mood swings. In one instant Jesse was griping about the unfair, inflated prices of Christmas ornaments, and in the next, he was sitting on the edge of the counter and staring despondently across the kitchen with tomato sauce on his chin as he methodically yet absently smeared his palms together enough for Walt to offer him a napkin. Jesse didn’t even hear him.

Once they were done eating and Jesse had spent a considerable amount of time in the bathroom, Walt had recommended they wind down outdoors with a small fire. Jesse reluctantly agreed and quieted considerably once they settled into their seats.

It’s so serenely silent, Walt can even hear the passing call of a Northern Saw-whet coming from somewhere in the darkness.

“ _What the hell was that_?” Jesse jerks his head in Walt’s direction.

“An owl, Jesse,” he says. He pats the sharp edge of Jesse’s shoulder. “It was an owl. Nothing to be alarmed about. I understand you’re scrawny, but I promise I won’t let it take you away.”

Jesse drops his eyes to the ground, twisting his shoe into the grass, plucking his upper lip. “I touched an owl one time.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“Boy scouts,” Jesse says. He pulls on his cigarette and exhales a dense white fog into the black chill. “Yo, it’s sort of long story.”

Walt snorts. “ _You_ were in the Boy Scouts? For how long?”

Jesse shrugs. “Like three weeks when I was twelve. But, that ain’t the point. What I was going to say is that my troop or whatever went camping in Black Rock, like out by Eustace Lake. I’d never been in a tent or hiked or nothing before, and my dad like confiscated my Game Boy before he _made_ me go. I was dreading it all week. Then we got there and went canoeing and like learned shit about snakes and made s’mores and it was like actually pretty awesome. The last morning, I woke up before everybody to take a piss. It was still kind of dark, but the fire was still going and I walked over….”

“Does this culminate in ‘And, I sort of like accidentally started a massive forest fire that killed my entire Boy Scout troop?’” Walt traces his fingers along the smooth plastic arm of his chair.  

“No, _dickbag,_ ” Jesse says. He tosses the butt of his cigarette, using the freedom of his hand to scratch at the back of his neck. “I walk over and see this like small white thing just like spazzing out in the grass. At first I thought it was a bunny. But, it was a baby owl. It was a snowy owl, like Hedwig from _Harry Potter_. They’re totally rare in New Mexico, and this one had a wing all jacked-up like a fucking bendy straw after you like gnaw on it for a while. Then I notice his wing’s not working ‘cause one of the bones is like snapped a little bit. I didn’t want to leave him like that to, you know, die or whatever.”    

Jesse chews at the corner of his mouth. “So, I like talked to it. I said everything was gonna be chill, like he was gonna be okay and shit. And, I picked him up. He felt like so soft and he wasn’t freaking out anymore. One of the other kids left their bandana outside, and I ripped it up and like kind of MacGyvered a sling for its wing. Mr. Schaffer, the like head troop leader, walked out of his tent and saw what I did…and….”

He twitches his nose and shrugs again. “They ended up giving me this like first aid merit badge with a dope, gold cross stitched on. But, my mom found out she was pregnant pretty soon after that, and my dad was between jobs, so they needed to cut back on shit.”

“What happened to the owl?”

“It just…stopped breathing about an hour after I found it. I like didn’t take it well.” Jesse taps his thumb against his knee, turns his head away from Walt, and scrubs at his face. “They probably just gave me the badge so I’d stop fucking crying.”

Walt absently wonders if he remembered to pre-record _Jeopardy_. “I’m sure that wasn’t the case, Jesse.”

Jesse coughs a squeaky sound and everything becomes extremely soundless aside from the spit and pop of the logs.

Walt’s quickly tiring out from standing so continuously and being in the sun longer than he’s accustomed to and keeping up with Jesse like he’s a hyperactive toddler. He lets his eyes shut, tilts his face up into the soothing warmth. The arm of his chair jostles his elbow.

“Yo, is it just me or is it hella hot?”

Walt inhales through his nose. “The most common byproduct of the hurried oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion is often the release of heat.”

“Yeah, okay. But, like are you not like _super_ fucking hot right now?”

There’s the synthetic rustle of the plastic slots of Jesse’s patio furniture, and Walt cracks each lid open one at a time. Jesse is sitting rigidly upright. His t-shirt is lifted up to his collarbone with his other hand petting his chest in the same manner of downward strokes Walt likes to mollify Jesse with post-coitus.

Jesse tips his head back and sighs. “ _Shit_ , it’s like the flames are trying to boil my whole fucking body.”

With no other preamble, he hauls the shirt over his head and throws it on the grass. He stands and kicks his tennis shoes away seconds before he shucks off his jeans in a series of hops and teetering fumbles.

Jesse wedges his fingers into the waistband of his ridiculous black and green skull-print boxers with an uncertain yet arrogant air that Jesse’s able to wear so innately, and Walt unfailingly enjoys watching.

He nods to the residence on the left. “My orthodontist and his ugly wife live there. And, my dad told me they’re on some lame-ass Disney cruise, celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary.”

He tugs the cotton past his thighs and lets them fall as he nods back to the darkened three-story structure to the right. “Different assholes, same cruise, yo.”

Walt receives only a brief glimpse of the direct, unflinchingly striking image of Jesse bare before he plops down in the chair and sinuously stretches his legs out. The radiance of the fire echoes off of his tattoos in a way that’s undeniably tribal, primitive even. His scarce body hair glints along his skin, lips parted, pink tongue bathing the lower half. It’s as if Jesse is someone’s graphically detailed masturbatory fantasy with a pulse if that fantasy were labeled something along the lines of “Exquisite Ruffian in the Wilderness.” Walt believes the most appropriate response would be to capture this with a camera. He could make a nice spread for a magazine; emphasize the contrast of urban and exotic. Walt doesn’t have a camera on him. So, his next instinct is to just drag Jesse through the grass by the scruff of his neck to take him inside and vigorously fuck him.    

Walt is so transfixed with the idea that he’s deeply startled once he notices Jesse’s teeth are dug into the smooth flesh of his mouth, notices the way he’s quietly groaning, notices the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of his forearm.

Jesse is masturbating.    

He’s touching himself in front of Walt, and all Walt can do is straighten up ramrod in his seat and gawk.

Jesse flashes him a stunningly white-toothed grin simply brimming with smug self-assurance. “You like this, Mr. White?”

Walt nods like a brainless imbecile. He reaches out without much deliberation to cover the back of Jesse’s knuckles. Maybe Walt’s intention is for them to do this together. But, once contact is made, Jesse lets his hand flop to the side. He lifts into Walt’s opened palm.

“ _Fuck yes_ ,” Jesse moans.

Walt wraps his fingers around Jesse’s already throbbing dick, slides them in a corkscrew from hilt to tip, providing a zealous amount of individual attention to the head oozing like a punctured, roasted marshmallow.

Jesse gasps and shivers. “Yo, Mr. White, take your shit off.”

“I…don’t think so, Jesse.” Walt chuckles. “No, I’m quite comfortable wearing clothing in thirty degree weather.”

“Come on, Mr. White. It’s like we’re in the fucking jungle. We’re men, yo. Be a wild man with me.”

Jesse smiles, pinching his own nipple with his back arched, tipping deeper into Walt’s fist. He’s trying to sell this idea almost like he’s slinging their product.

Walt nervously eyes the lurking presence of the neighboring house just beyond Jesse’s fence.

Jesse scoffs. “Yo, they’re probably barfing all-you-can-eat crab legs into fucking Mickey Mouse hats right about now. Ain’t nobody home.”

Walt coughs, wants to say something, but Jesse swats his hand off. Jesse springs up to his feet, takes a step and saddles up in Walt’s lap like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Cupping Walt’s jaw firmly in both hands, Jesse bends down to kiss him openmouthed and hot-breathed. Jesse’s tongue coyly twists its way inside. His fingers manipulate the front of Walt’s jacket open before they find the buttons on his shirt and get two unfastened.

Walt pulls back. “Jesse, it’s _freezing_ out here.”

This blatantly evident observation seems to stump Jesse for a second before he smirks.

“ _Body heat_ ,” he says triumphantly. “That shit keeps like lost hikers and hairless cats alive all the time.”  

“It ain’t gonna kill you. Like I know you want this. Baby, _come on_ , you’re so hard for me. _”_ He squirms pleasantly into Walt’s crotch and pouts with a petulant yet sultry expression that looks entirely too effective on someone his age.

However, Walt is _not_ going nude in Jesse’s backyard with the temperature below freezing. There are plenty of other activities available to them. Things like Walt sucking his own fingers into his mouth and tracing them along the maroon indentions he left along Jesse’s inner thigh. Saturating the digits again, he grinds against the soft skin of Jesse’s leg as his hand ventures to the cleft of Jesse’s backside. Jesse receptively pushes into it, shuddering as Walt gingerly jams two inside.

Just as Walt is poised to stroke Jesse with his free hand, he feels Jesse pin his wrist to the armrest. All marks of playfulness have been cleared from Jesse’s expression. His eyes are cruel as he forcefully thumbs open the button of Walt’s khakis. Jesse yanks down the zipper and grips Walt tight enough to make his knuckles stand out in the same shade of white as Walt’s underwear.

Walt hisses. “ _What_ are you doing?”

He loosens his hold and fondles the cotton concealing Walt’s damp, twitching erection. Summoning a smile, he sighs with his voice at a whisper that’s gritty like warm granulated sugar. “I know you’re cold, Mr. White.”

Jesse slides the tip of himself into the flap of Walt’s underwear, pulls out and languidly pushes it back inside to graze Walt’s dick. The teasing drag of sticky skin on skin is extraordinary.

Jesse retreats yet again with an alarmingly hot palm on Walt’s thigh. He wets his lips. “Just let me cover you up.”

He seems to wait for some sort of nonverbal cue and appears pleased when Walt splays his legs apart. He swiftly draws Walt from the fabric, extracting his hand just as quickly to hold on to the armrests. Pivoting up, Jesse drops down in a squishy, wet-dry, friction-charged descent that burns Walt’s lungs like he’s guzzling methylamine.

Jesse quivers, mouth agape with his eyes squeezed almost as tight as the clammy, ridges of heat Walt is so lovely encased in. It’s not long before Jesse moves again, making it halfway up Walt’s shaft before shoving back down. Choking out a moan, Jesse shifts his hold to Walt’s shoulders and starts a gallop-paced up-and-down that must be shredding the boy into mere atoms and molecules. Jesse’s cock is bobbing with each thrust and poking himself in the ribs.

“Hey,” Jesse pants. “What the hell is a twink?”

Walt grabs each cheek of Jesse’s ass to pull him in deeper. “I’m not familiar…with the phrase. Try using it in a sentence.”

He laughs, slack-jawed and breathless. “Yo…if I could use it…in a sentence, I wouldn’t be asking you what it means.”

“We’ll have to…look it up later,” Walt says.

He hums in agreement and bows his back. He’s riding him harder than anything Walt’s ever experienced. The flimsy lounge chair whines and wobbles. Flaky embers float and glow around Jesse, illuminating the mottled, rosy, raw-chicken flush of his skin, backlighting him with hues of orange. It’s breathtaking.

Jesse spasms and rears his head back. Walt feels moisture on the exposed portion of his chest, looks down to see the substance is dark red, lifts his eyes to more spurting down Jesse’s chin.

Jesse’s nose is bleeding profusely.

\-----

Jesse tastes the coppery liquid on his tongue before he realizes anything’s coming out of his nose. S _hit,_ he did too much. That one line turned into seven. Then he did like three more after dinner. And, now he’s pumping out enough blood to give Tarantino a hard-on.

“Yo, don’t stop. Don’t stop,” Jesse says.

Maybe he’s like talking to himself since he’s doing most of the work, skewered onto Mr. White’s cock like a stick jamming into a campfire hotdog. It’s the dopest mix: a brutal, scalding chafe and a thrilling, surging tingle that’s like helped convert Jesse to dude-on-dude ass-humping in the first place.      

He wipes the back of his hand across his face, coating his scorpion tattoo in blood.

“Here,” Mr. White says. He holds the back of Jesse’s head and tilts him forward. “We don’t want you flooding your lungs.”

He thrusts up into Jesse, and it’s like Jesse’s flattered and also disgusted that Mr. White’s so cool with fucking him while he’s bleeding like a shanked Porky Pig.

He’s not being dramatic either ‘cause he can feel the stuff leaking down his neck all the way to like his sternum. He starts getting dizzy again. The backyard is all dark and blurry, but like clear as shit at the same time. His ass feels fuller than fucking ever while every other part of him feels like it’s getting kicked around like a two-day-old foil birthday balloon with leaky helium, but like somehow in an awesome way. And Jesse’s for sure gasping and shit as he struggles to keep up the frantic pace of how he’s pogo-hopping on the guy’s dick.

One of Mr. White’s hands leaves Jesse’s neck to smudge the space between Jesse’s nipples now slick with blood. Dabbing his fingers into the shallow layer, he like slow-motion reaches down and slathers the fluid along Jesse’s prick. He does the same thing like two more times before he’s tightly jerking Jesse in his own damn slippery gore.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jesse says. He feels his dick stiffen and swell.

The fire’s a surging sweat-fest on his back and he’s got like hemorrhaged juice all over himself and this has got to be the gayest version of _Lord of the Flies_ ever. It’s either that or a meth-head’s twisted wet dream.

Jesse ain’t even sure how, but he uses his forearm muscles to pull almost all the way off Mr. White before like literally jumping back on it. With his fingers snapped into shoulder skin, Jesse rolls his ass back in hurried waves. He feels tender and spongy on top of Mr. White, like the waning moon’s transforming him into one huge, human-shaped prostate. Or maybe that’s Jesse’s coked-up brain’s way of telling him he just found his own spot.

“ _Mr. White_ ,” Jesse whimpers.

Yeah, that’s totally it.        

A new gush of blood drips past his lips. His brain’s feeling kind of empty. He’s so lightheaded he’s worried he’ll get sucked into the flames if he loses any more of his insides.

Then there’s lips on the side of his face getting him grounded again, back to the present where he’s violently see-sawing between Mr. White’s cock and his snug fist, in the dark, naked even though Mr. White’s just got his dick out. It takes him a second to like register how gently Mr. White’s kissing his cheek.

Another owl cries somewhere as a breeze drifts across some low hanging branches.

Mr. White palms the base of Jesse’s scalp and whispers, “My boy.”

He presses his mouth into Jesse’s temple. And, Jesse’s lips like involuntarily hollow out into an “o” with his head back, savoring his super-charged orgasm like he’s silently howling into the stars.

He comes just as messy as he always does with Mr. White, streaking his chest and Mr. White’s blue button-down. But, with the flicker of the fire and being outside and all the fucking blood, the two of them look like they just got initiated into some straw-hut, bones-pierced-in-their-nostrils, rainforest tribe.

It makes Jesse rally enough to grind his ass into Mr. White’s balls. He focuses on clenching around him as much as he can.

Smirking, he smears his thumbs into the sloppy slime on his chest and wipes a stripe on each side of Mr. White’s face, keeps his voice low. “Wild man,” he says.

Mr. White fucking loses it, groaning out almost a bark as he comes thick inside of Jesse, moving his hips in slowing pushes.

Jesse carefully touches his nose to feel it’s sort of dry, clotted at least, but his vision’s still staggering around like he’s shitfaced or something. “Yo, I think I got a fucking concussion.”

“Let’s go to your room,” Mr. White says.

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to sleep though.”

He pats Jesse’s lower back. “You won’t fall asleep.”

Sure as shit, Jesse doesn’t. He spends almost the whole night on his hands and knees, metal frame of his bed slamming into the wall, wearing nothing but white ankle socks and caked-on blood. He comes two more times, happily spilling all over his mom’s nice duvet shit.

Mr. White is like hella attentive. He’s caressing him everywhere in the soft glow of his galaxy nightlight and fucking him _so_ deep and hard against the old, creaking mattress.

At some point, Jesse’s showering in the big old-timey tub of the key lime pie tiled hallway bathroom with Mr. White. They’re like thoroughly making out and touching each other like they’re trying to teach his mom’s creepy collection of rubber ducks a class called “Bath-Time Fucking.” Jesse feels totally drained coming down from the combo of bouncing powder and bouncing on cock. All like sudsy and satisfied, Jesse knows this one-spike-after-another shit he just did can’t be a onetime thing. It’s the best he’s felt in days. There’s no way he’s not gonna do this again and again and again.

\-----

Walt brushes eraser fragments from the clip-boarded sheet of paper in his hand as he dates the top right corner and sets it aside. He won’t be writing down the day’s yield for another half hour or so, but he wants to be ready.

Jesse’s hunched over a tray of Blue Sky and hammering away with a metallic clamor he seems to be drowning out with those white headphones he sticks inside his ears. Their outdoor adventure was only four days ago though Jesse’s bearing the time on his face like it’s been years. He’s been distant and distracted in the lab, vocal and fervent in bed. As of recent, however, he insists on sleeping over every night. Even more peculiar is that Walt consistently complies.

“Yo,” Jesse says. He’s got a chord dangling down his chest with one ear free. “My dad called this morning and told me he like _appreciated_ my help. It was like so tempting to tell him we could have left the place looking like a fucking JSI crime scene or something.”

Walt squints. “JSI?”

Jesse scans the lab and flicks his attention briefly to the beaming red eye of the nearest security camera. He seems to shrug to himself, sniffles. “Jizz Scene Investigations, you know like _CSI_ except like everything’s covered in semen and….”

He holds his arm out. “Thank you. I seem to be getting the picture now.”

“Yeah, well, get _this_ , Mr. White,” he says. He begins the process of transporting the shards of their product from tray to storage container. “My dad kept talking about how like downright crazy he is about the fire pit and like how he and my mom and her French cousins had a great time breaking it in.”

Jesse retrieves a new sheet of Blue and rears his mallet back. “He said, and I quote or whatever, they had a ‘stupendous time breaking it in.’”

Shaking his head, Jesse returns to the familiar _smack_ and _shatter_ of his work. He laughs at a delirious, desperate-sounding volume as he repeats “breaking it in, yo, _fucking_ breaking it in.”

Walt doesn’t really know how to respond, because while it’s nice to see Jesse smiling, he knows without a shred of uncertainty that Jesse’s turned back to the drugs. He’s known since the nosebleed. It’s obvious. Even with all of the time he spends at Walt’s apartment, there’s still the unaccounted for hours between work and the evenings when Jesse’s always allegedly too busy to do anything. He even turned down free pizza, which Walt hadn’t imagined Jesse could even be capable of doing. Once Jesse’s schedule is suddenly free, he’s consistently careful enough to shower before he comes over. Every night, Walt is greeted with pliable, supple skin, willing to the point of impatience, jumpy under Walt’s hands.

But, this new timing development didn’t sit right with Walt. He decided to drive by Jesse’s house yesterday. Sure enough, there was an almost steady throng of people coming and going, music loud, beer bottles and pizza boxes on the lawn. Walt was right yet again.

“Jesse,” he says. “I’m meeting with Saul and Skyler this afternoon to discuss the car wash, but I was thinking…I was thinking afterwards, you might want to check out the go-kart track you mentioned.”

“Yeah.” He grins. “Yeah, man, that’d be awesome. We can meet at your place.”

Walt smiles and handles the clipboard again. He’s already formulating and rehearsing his words for the sit-down he’s planning. After this go-kart nonsense, he’ll confront Jesse, speak some reason into him. Walt knows he needs to say something before Jesse’s cranium putrefies like spoiled fruit. The boy just needs a mere modicum of attention and a good dose of advised precaution. And, Walt needs to reach the core, that rotted pit inside of Jesse’s head, have this situation fixed before it gets Walt killed.

 


End file.
